Comments by Kate Carruthers Subscribe

On Social media 2009 and beyond

Robin
you can always rebrand (just depends on how much you'd like to spend on
branding consultants ;)

The term blogger is
interesting. Until recently bloggers were considered amateurs who merely
prattled, while serious commentary was the province of journalists. But there
is increasing recognition of some bloggers as relevant & informed
commentators.

A number of PR firms are
treating some bloggers just like journalists, inviting them to media briefings,
product launches and conferences.

The reason for this is
that these bloggers offer distribution and reach approaching that of many
traditional journalists and their publications.

Also many traditional
media outlets have resorted to simply copying AAP or Reuters feeds without
adding any commentary or value (perhaps due to downsizing & reductions in
journalist staff numbers?).

Further, the shift of
traditional media companies online has given legitimacy to online in the eyes
of consumers, companies and advertisers.

All of this adds to
increased legitimacy for some bloggers, who are becoming increasingly
professionalized. I suspect the media game is continuing to shift & that
the roles of bloggers and journalists will start to blend.

On Social media 2009 and beyond

Robin if we knew the answer to that one we'd all be a lot better off ;)

Seriously, how do we measure quality media in general & does it matter? How is 'social' media different in that respect?

Pretty soon we're going to have to drop the 'social' prefix and admit that this is media is these days.

On Social media 2009 and beyond

Ari - thank you for taking the time to comment.

Please note the 700,000 new members were for Facebook per day. I made no assertions as to the mainstreaming of Twitter, rather my argument is that Facebook has already gone mainstream.  To verify that assertion one needs only to the look at the Facebook growth stats for 2009.

My point regarding Twitter was completely different. That Twitter, while much less mainstream, is becoming the place where news breaks and where buzz builds and  then leaks over into other mainstream news media.

The interesting thing about Twitter is not that it is likely to go mainstream, rather that it presages the beginning of real time news. We are already seeing that television news cannot keep up with real time reactions in a disaster in the same way that people on the spot can share updates & report news via Twitter and associated photo or video blogging applications.

Poll people who don't use or understand the medium of Twitter all you like. But incidents like the plane crash in the Hudson photo & the realtime reactions of bystanders who saw that accident & shared their reactions/experiences are the beginning of a reshaping of our news media.

Before this news was broken and shared by professional journalists, now an ordinary person with mobile phone & a Twitter account can do the same thing.  That's why many of the journalists I know are actively monitoring Twitter for breaking news now.

Do I think everyone will sign up for & like Twitter? No. 

Do I think that the immediacy & ability for bystanders to share their experiences in realtime via Twitter will change things for the rest of the news media? Absolutely!

Don't forget 2 years ago we all thought that Second Life would change the way business worked.  And we were wrong.  But in the case of realtime media sharing and collaboration the genie is out of the bottle. And this shift is supported by communications devices (like the iPhone or other SmartPhones) that facilitate sharing and collaboration by ordinary people.

On Don’t fall in love with your social networking platform

I'm not sure that Twitter ought to be the 'inspiration' for the next big thing. Rather, I think that Twitter was right for the time.  But am not sure that simply copying their model would be a recipe for success.  We still don't have a clear picture of their revenue model & while they have made inroads in older user groups the teens still prefer other collaboration & communication platforms.